


Visions of Mountains

by Avelera



Series: No Heir of Durin 'Verse [2]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Dragon Sickness, Dwarf Gender Concepts, Dwobbit Frodo Baggins, Frodo is Bilbo and Thorin's Child, M/M, Madness, Pregnancy, Prophecy, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 15:43:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13484661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avelera/pseuds/Avelera
Summary: A companion piece to "No Heir of Durin".The words Thorin spoke to the child within him. Doomed, and ill-fated from the start, just as he had always been, but never let it be said that the child that would one day be named Frodo was not loved.





	Visions of Mountains

**Author's Note:**

  * For [erbor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/erbor/gifts).



> Written in response to a prompt by Erbor: No Heir of Durin. I was always curious about whether Thorin got to know his son before passing away.
> 
> This is a **canon compliant** companion piece to my previous fic in this series, "No Heir of Durin", which puts forth the idea that Frodo is Thorin and Bilbo's biological child. Thorin is a bearer and dwarven gender does not follow a strict gender binary, being able to bear children has no influence on how one presents oneself in their society (that said, Thorin considers himself male even if he can bear children, and refers to himself in male pronouns). This is not mpreg.
> 
> Honestly, while watching Lord of the Rings it's almost impossible not to see Frodo as their child given the combination of characteristics, so I find this headcanon adds a great deal to the story. I hope you enjoy.

Thorin thought he first felt the baby kick in Mirkwood, but given that they were all hallucinating at the time, it had been easy to dismiss as his imagination.

But by the time they had spent their first month in Thranduil’s dungeons, and he nearly every morning losing what scraps of food the cursed elves gave them, it fast became impossible to ignore.

It seemed hobbits were much more fertile than he could have ever imagined.

Not that their first night in Beorn’s back in the spring (it was getting on autumn now, and Durin’s Day growing ever closer) was the only time. They had found stolen moments along the road when they could, even if it was only fumbled hands inside their shared bedroll. Yet no matter how he counted it here was no way to ignore it: the blasted burglar had managed in a single night what no lover of Thorin’s had managed in a hundred years. He had left Thorin with child.

The realization stole over Thorin while he was still clammy and pale-faced from losing that morning’s breakfast, hunched over in the corner of his cell as far from the entrance as possible, so no elf could see and mock his illness. His very strange illness, that he had once taken for leftover spider venom but which now made a great deal more sense.

He put a hand to his stomach and looked down, saying the first words he would ever speak to their unborn child: 

“We are in a great deal of trouble, little one.”

* * *

There wasn’t much use fretting about his own safety, even with the revelation of his second passenger. He could not set the Quest for Erebor aside for one dwarf, not even if it was his own life, or the promise of his own child. The only choice was to do what he could to live out the year, and reclaim a homeland for the child to be born into, if they even made it that far. At his age, less than a decade from the latest any dwarf had ever given birth, it would be uncertain even under the best of circumstances.

This he reminded himself, even as he stared out the window of Bard’s cottage to the mountain, shrouded in mist, while Bilbo dozed on the bed still stuffy with his cold. They would have to move to raid the armory that evening, and there was no escaping that, like every other day of his life, it was do or die. He could not go soft now for a child who had never really had a chance.

Thorin thought of this, and stared at the windlance, and tried not to think of the cold seeping into his bones ever since he had first set eyes upon the mountain.

* * *

They thought he was talking to himself, the traitors and thieves that wore the guise of his companions. They thought he was going mad. Little did they know that the line of Durin was secure, little did they know he spoke to the one who would one day be their king.

“The mountains are yours, little one, they are in your bones and blood and they will always wait for you,” Thorin murmured as he stalked the halls of the treasury. Bilbo was missing, or searching for the Arkenstone on his behalf though Thorin had excused him from the task. Such loyalty Thorin had never hoped to have, and yet he carried in him a secret that even in the pride of kingship and the mastery of the gold he could not bring himself to speak to Bilbo. Perhaps it was he who was the faithless one, he who was the coward…

But no, that was Oakenshield.  _He_  was the king. He had a promise to keep to his new heir, this heir of Durin born to be the master of precious gold.

“Great kings will swear themselves to you, little one, and the sons of kings, and mighty dwarf lords. They will pledge themselves to your side and to your cause. They will speak your name as they charge into battle,” Thorin told the promise waiting inside him. His voice was low and harsh from thirst, but he did not need water, he only needed one thing, and once it was found…

Coins jangled beneath his feet as he rounded the corner, and Bilbo appeared before him as if from the air.

“Thorin.” Bilbo’s brow was drawn and he looked up at Thorin, a damp waterskin in one hand, and his other ducking into a pocket and back. “I went to fetch you something to drink. Please, if you will not rest, at least have this.”

Thorin stopped, and his eyes slowly refocused on the hobbit before him, on Bilbo’s face creased with worry. Something was wrong…wrong with everything around him, wrong with Bilbo’s fear, wrong with the stone, with the mountain, with his mind…Thorin squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his hand to his forehead, to his crown cold upon his forehead.

“Thorin, I’m serious, you don’t look well. Just a sip, for me?”

Thorin opened his eyes and moved as if sleepwalking, taking the waterskin and pressing it to dry, cracked lips. The water was a shock of cold upon his tongue, drawn no doubt from the mountain streams emptied into the city’s silver fountains.

The child within him stirred, kicked as if the water was a relief to that small life as well, though it was early for a dwarf child, only seven months since conception. The heavy robes concealed his form too well to show it, and bulky armor hid any further trace. Bilbo could not have known of the life Thorin carried, so why had he cared that Thorin drank?

“I have some food here too, we can sit for a moment and have a bite…”

“No, the search must continue,” Thorin said, and handed the waterskin back to Bilbo. The hobbit’s face fell and this time Bilbo’s quicksilver features did not move to conceal his dismay. “You have my thanks for the water. It will be of help.”

“Thorin, wait!”

But he was already moving away, his back turned so Bilbo did not see that his hand went to cover the child as if shielding it. It stirred again as they walked from Bilbo’s side as if in protest.

 _Hush_ , Thorin whispered to the little one in his thoughts.  _You must be strong. My nephews are gone now. Someday you will see a nation bow before you_.

Thorin closed his eyes and tried to picture the child’s future. Yet when he did, all he saw was green fields, and a round door, and Bilbo, always Bilbo… 

* * *

“ _I am sorry to have led you into such peril_ ,” Thorin’s voice cracked. Blood was welling in his lungs, and though he had parried the blade to his chest instead of his belly, he knew the child could not possibly survive him.

 _I am sorry I never told you_ , he thought as pain surged through him, and the ache in his heart was worse still.  _I am sorry I betrayed you, little one, I am sorry I could not bring you home_.

There would be no child, no heir of Durin to follow after him, no lad or lass with Bilbo’s curls, and his eyes, no home for them to make in mountains or in green fields. He had never even chosen a name, and the world was too dark now, and his limbs to cold to grant one. Frerin, he might have thought once but no, that was too ill-fated, too drenched in blood. Something from Bilbo’s people instead. He should have asked. He should have…

“No, no, no, no, Thorin don’t you dare!”

It was too late now, no time left for all that needed to be said, much less to grant a name. He must bid his farewell to Bilbo, say something to dim the pain in his eyes, and speak to him of home and the joy he had made of Thorin’s life. He and the child would meet again in another place, a better place, in the halls of their fathers to wait until the world was renewed. A sad world to never know this small life, and a merry one they could have had, but sad or merry they left it now.

_Farewell, Master Burglar…_

* * *

 

_“[Frodo] found himself wondering at times, especially in the Autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams. He began to say to himself ‘Perhaps I shall cross the river myself one day.’ To which the other half of his mind always replied 'Not yet.’”_

_The Fellowship of the Ring - JRR Tolkien_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed, please consider leaving a comment.
> 
> If you would like an alert for when I publish original novels and short stories, you can sign up [here](http://eepurl.com/dnzuV1).


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